Marionette figures



y 1956 L. A. GRUENEWAELDER 2,747,329

MARIONETTE FIGURES Filed May 5, 1952 INVENTOR.

Lou A. GRUENEWAELDER United States PatentOflice Patented May 29, 1956 MARIONETTE FIGURES Lou A. Gruenewaelder, University City, Mo. Application May 5, 1952, Serial No. 286,086 1 Claim. (Cl. 46-161) This invention relates generally to marionette figures and more specifically to such figures which are produced by cutting the parts of which the figures are comprised from fiat sheets of cardboard, or other suitable material, and assembling the cutout figure parts to produce completed figures, the predominant object of the invention being to provide a marionette figure, all parts of which are so made that they may be cut from a flat sheet of material, this being true even of certain shafts which serve in the completely assembled figure for hingedly attaching certain movable parts of the figure to other parts thereof.

Fig. 1 is a side elevational view of the marionette figure of this invention showing same as it appears when the hand guide and threads are associated therewith.

Fig. 2 is a front elevation of the assembly shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 3 is an enlarged fragmentary, horizontal section taken on line 33 of Fig. 1.

Fig. 4 is an enlarged cross-section taken on line 4-4 of Fig. 3.

Fig. 5 is an enlarged cross-section taken on line 5-5 of Fig. 1.

Fig. 6 is a section on a reduced scale taken on line 6-6 of Fig. 1.

Fig. 7 illustrates a cutout from which the body and head of the figure is produced but showing said cutout before the body has been folded and assembled.

Figs. 8 and 9 illustrate, respectively, a leg and an arm of the marionette figure of this invention.

Fig. 10 illustrates a modified form of the invention.

In the drawing, wherein is shown for purposes of illustration, merely, two embodiments of the invention, A designates the improved marionette figure generally. The marionette figure A is provided with a body portion 1 and a head portion 2, said body portion and said head portion being formed from a single sheet 3 of cardboard, or other suitable non-metallic material, as is shown to good advantage in Fig. 7. The portion of the sheet of material 3 that produces the body of the figure A is substantially rectangular in shape, and it is provided with a plurality of parallel, vertical fold lines 4, said portion of said sheet 3 being provided with a slit 5 that is located inwardly slightly of one side edge of said sheet 3, and at the opposite side edge of said sheet 3 a tab 6 is formed thereon. The portion of the sheet 3 which produces the head 2 of the figure is, of course, an integral part of the sheet 3, and said sheet 3 is provided with a plurality of apertures 7 which serve a purpose to be hereinafter explained. When the sheet 3 is being assembled for use as a part of the figure A, the portion of the sheet 3 which produces the body of the figure is folded on the fold lines 4 to produce a rectangular structure, such as is shown in Fig. 5, the tab 6 being passed through the slit 5 so as to retain said structure in its assembled condition. By referring to Fig. 7 it will be noted that the sheet 3 has printed, or otherwise displayed thereon, an upper pair of alined circles 8, and a lower pair of alined circles 9.

These circles each has a cross-shaped slit Sa formed therein, and said cross-shaped slits serve a function to be hereinafter set forth.

The marionette figure A includes a pair of arms 10 and a pair of legs 11, said arms and said legs each being cut from a sheet of flat cardboard, or other suitable nonmetallic material, the arms 10 being provided with representations of hands, while the legs 11 are provided with representations of feet. The arms 10 and the legs 11 each has printed, or otherwise displayed thereon at a point adjacent to an end thereof, a circle 12 within which is formed a cross-shaped slit Sb. The arms 10 and the legs 11 are hingedly supported for swinging movement by the body portion 1 of the figure A and this is accomplished by first forcing a sharply pointed pencil through the material of which the body portion 1 is formed at the centers of the circles 8 and 9, the pencil being forced through the material of the body portion from the rear or blank side of said material so as to force the pointed tangs formed by the cross-shaped slits outwardly of said material. The same thing is done with the two arms 10 and the two legs 11 of the figure, a sharp pencil being forced through the circles 12 of said arms and legs from the rear or blank sides thereof so as to force the tangs formed by the cross-shaped slits Sb within said circles in an outward direction. When this has been done pieces of the material are cut from the sheet of non-metallic material from which the sheet 3, the arms 10, and the legs 11 have been cut, and these pieces of material are rolled tightly, around a pencil, for instance, or other suitable implement, so as to produce elongated shafts 13.

One of the shafts so produced is passed through the alined openings formed through the arms 10 by a sharp pencil and the similar openings formed through opposed side walls of the body portion 1 of the figure, the opposite end portions of the shaft having strips 14 of gummed tape, or other suitable material, wound thereabout so as to hold the shaft in its wound condition and to act as abutments that prevent the shaft from being accidentally displaced from the openings in which it is disposed. Another of the wound shafts 13 is passed through the openings formed through the material of the legs 11 by a sharp pencil and the similar openings formed through opposed side Walls of the body portion 1, and the opposite end portions of this shaft also have wound thereabout strips 14 of gummed tape, or other suitable material, for the purposes set forth above. Thus, the arms 10 and legs 11 are supported by the shafts 13 for swinging movement with respect to the body portion 1 of the figure A.

The marionette structure of the present invention includes a hand guide 15 to which threads are attached, there being a thread 16 which is passed through the apertures 7 formed through portions of the sheet 3, with a portion 16:: of said thread extending transversely of the back of the body portion 1, as is shown in Fig. 3. The upper end portions of the thread portions 16b pass through pin holes formed through the hand guide and such end portions are secured to the top face of the hand guide through the instrumentality of suitable gummed tape 17. The thread portions 16b are also secured to the back face of the head portion of the figure by means of pieces of gummed tape 18. Likewise, threads 19 are attached at their lower ends to the arms 10 and threads 20 are attached at their lower ends to the legs 11, and these threads 19 and 20 are attached at their upper ends to the hand guide 15, the lower end portions of the threads 19 and 20 being extended through pin holes formed through the arms and legs of the figure and being secured to said arms and legs by pieces of gummed tape 21, while the upper end portions of said threads are extended through pin holes formed through the hand guide and are r 3 secured to said hand guide by means of pieces of gumm ed tape 22. t r

It is obvious that in the use of the marionette structure described herein and illustrated in the drawing, thehand guide 15 is subjected to movement which raises and lowers the figure A and also moves the arms and legs of the figure with respect to the body and head thereof. Also, because of the construction and arrangement of'the figure A, said figure may be cut from a flat sheet of material by a child who has the satisfaction of constructing a puppet toy through his or her own efforts. This adds pleasure to the possession of the toy and it teaches the child use of the hands which is highly important.

Fig. 10 illustrates a modified form of the invention according to which the opposite end portions of each of the shafts 13 are provided with slits 23 at opposite sides of the shaft (one only being shown in Fig. 10), and portions 24 of the shafts are turned outwardly, as is shown in Fig. 10, so as to prevent the shafts from slipping out of the openings in which they are disposed. Preferably, the outwardly turned shaft portions 24 may have strips 25 of gummed tape adhesively applied thereto to hold said shaft portions in their outwardly turned positions.

I claim:

A sheet material marionette figure comprising a body portion, a head portion, atpair of arms and apair of legs, and means for attaching said arms and said legs to said body portion for swinging movement with respect thereto, said means comprising a tightly rolled piece of sheet material extended through and beyond said body portion and through openings formed in said arms, and a tightly rolled piece of sheet material extended through and beyond said body portion and through openings formed in said legs, said tightly rolled pieces of sheet material serving as shafts about which said arms and legs swing, inner portions of said tightly rolled pieces of sheet material serving as cores of the rolled shafts and means for preventing unrolling of said tightly rolled pieces of sheet material and for retaining said arms and legs thereon, said means comprising elements wound about said tightly rolled pieces of sheet material at opposite ends thereof.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS OTHER REFERENCES 420Handicrafts in Simple Steps, by Gloria Foreman, published 1949, pages 7-h, 34-h. 

